How Does This Politics Thing Work Then?

Politics is super important and can be really fun, if you know how! Suitable ages 6+.
Pegasus Theatre, Sat 8 February 2020

Comedy Club for Kids are bringing a special show to Pegasus this month, aimed at making politics more accessible - and entertaining - for little ones. We caught up with the show's co-creator, Tiernan Douieb

How long have you been performing for kids? How did you get into it?

For about 13 years now, and it was the most terrifying-sounding thing ever when I was first asked to give it a go. Comedy Club 4 Kids (CC4K) was originally run by the brilliant children's comedian James Campbell, and after seeing my adult stand-up he thought I'd be suitable. I was less sure, but here I am years later, still doing it and now co-running CC4K and doing comedy shows about politics to them all over the UK!

Do children make a kinder audience than adults? What's the
strangest/funniest heckle you've had from your junior audience?

Yes and no. They are usually more excited about seeing a show than adults are, easier to warm up and less scared of sitting in the front row. So all of those qualities mean that if they like what you're doing, they can be the best audience ever. However, they also aren't afraid of letting you know what they're thinking, and hearing a child politely ask halfway through a show 'when is the comedy meant to start?' can be pretty brutal.

The worst I've had was at a show a few years ago, where, as the host, I asked a small boy to whisper the worst word he knew into my ear. I was expecting him to say 'poo' or 'bum' as per usual, and then I'd pretend to be horrified. Instead, he very loudly, so the whole room could hear, said 'Why are you doing this? Why?' It really made me evaluate my life choices.

Where do kids get the idea that politics is boring from?

Adults mainly. To be fair, in recent times, people have rightly been bored or at least exasperated with politics, and rather than teaching children what it is, why it's important and why they're sick of it, kids just hear that its all terrible or useless. It's not on the curriculum to educate children in how parliament works and why. So I think all of that can breed apathy and the notion that it's not for them and it's over-complicated, none of which is true. So myself and Tatton Spiller from Simple Politics wanted to show that it can be easy to understand and fun, and somehow contain a lot of random cat pictures, audience interaction, and terrible jokes.

How do you talk about the current political landscape without swearing?

Ha! That's a good question. In my stand-up for grown ups I do a lot, but its important for children that our show doesn't take sides, doesn't tell them what to think, just how it works, to enable them to get to grips with it so they can form their own opinions. Otherwise, we'd receive a lot of complaints from parents, even if they sympathised!

How do the kids generally respond to the show? Does it vary depending on
what area you're in?

We've been really humbled by the response. Children get really involved, often know a lot more than I do (or at least pretend to in the show) and after most shows have come up to us after to tell us how much fun they had. We've also had a lot of parents and carers ask if we can do a version for grown-ups! What is funny is that judging by the general elections we run in the show, if children were in charge, the Green Party would probably be in government. That's the same for pretty much every area we've done it in.

Do you have a favourite Oxford politician, past/present/real/fictional?

I'm going to be a bit sneaky here, but Rebecca Front went to Oxford and her character in the Thick Of It, MP Nicola Murray was so hilariously useless and yet, somehow looking back, frighteningly prophetic in so many ways.

Location

Pegasus Theatre

Magdalen Road Oxford OX4 1RE

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George Fogarty February 10, 2020
A surprisingly effective, and highly engaging, introduction

Browsing the latest Pegasus programme on the lookout for some quality puppetry to take my kids along to, it was in fact this show, promising to make politics comprehensible to seven-year-olds, that ended up grabbing my attention. As a teacher of A level Politics myself, and with a 100% unblemished track record of failure in trying to explain anything political to my six year old, I was intrigued as to how it might be done. And so, to my surprise, was Louis, who happily agreed to accompany me, despite being 4 months below the recommended minimum age. What the heck, I’m not planning to wait until he’s 15 to show him Life of Brian, so why start worrying about such details now?

The show got off to a flying start, immediately winning the kids over with some bum jokes (natch, these guys are professionals!), and the adults - or at least maths geeks like me - with a line about Prime Ministers being people who can only be divided by themselves and one. All well and good, but how to transition to an actual explanation of politics? Well, entirely seamlessly is the answer, going into a thought experiment about only having 8 sweets to share between 10 people, asking the audience to proffer solutions, and then voting on them - but not before various superb improvised responses to the various suggestions.

Throughout, the main comedic device is the classic one of interplay between straight guy and moron, with Tiernan Douieb taking on the Baldrick role admirably. Much of the humour comes from his misunderstanding of Tatton Spiller’s patient attempts to explain, and he is definitely an accomplished comedy performer. Along the way, we got impressively comprehensible explanations of the purpose of voting, how taxes and spending work, and some of the key policies of the major parties - with the grand finale being, of course, a general election, with young audience members as candidates.

Louis and I certainly enjoyed it - “it was actually pretty funny,” he told me afterwards, as if this was a remarkable anomaly for something I had suggested. But did it go in? Did he learn anything about politics? “Oh I wasn’t really listening,” he said, “I was too busy counting my money”. Which neatly sums up the attitude towards politics of pretty much every generation since Thatcher. Oh well - perhaps 7+ was accurate after all... But, that aside, this was a surprisingly effective, and highly engaging, introduction to the process of political decision making.

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